f the staircase.

Past Heliet's exclamation of horror came a sharp ringing shriek--"O
Vivian! Rosie!" and darting by her astounded husband, down the stairs
fled Clarice, with a celerity that she would have thought impossible an
hour before.

Vivian's state of mind was a mixture of selfishness and horror. He had
not intended to hurt the child, merely to get her out of his way; but
when selfishness and remorse struggle together, the worse of the two
usually comes to the front. Vivian's first articulate answer was a
growl at his wife.

"Why did you not keep her out of my way? Gramercy, what a fuss about a
girl!"

Then he read his guilt in Heliet's eyes, and began faltering out excuses
and asseverations that he had not meant anything.

Clarice reached the foot of the stairs without heeding a word he said.
But other hands, as tender as her own, were there before her.

"Little Rosie! my poor little child!" came from Earl Edmund's gentle
lips, as he lifted the bruised child in his arms. Tenderly as it was
done, Rosie could not repress a moan of pain which went to the two
hearts that loved her.

She was not killed, but she was dying.

"A few hours," said the Earl's physician, instantly summoned, "a few
hours. There was nothing to be done. She would very likely not suffer
much--would hardly be conscious of pain until the end came."

The Earl bore her into his own chamber, and laid her on his bed. With
speechless agony Clarice watched beside her.

Just once Rosie spoke.

"Mother, Mother, don't cry!"

Clarice was shedding no tears; they would not come yet; but in Rosie's
eyes her strained white face was an equivalent.

"Mother, don't cry," said Rosie. "You said--I asked you--why people
died. You said our Lord called them. Must go--when our Lord calls."

Clarice was not able to answer; but Rosie's words struck cold to her
heart.

"Must go when our Lord calls!"

She could hardly pray. What went up was not prayer, but rather a wild,
passionate cry that this thing could not be--should not be.

There were those few hours of half-consciousness, and then, just at the
turn of the night, the Lord came and called, and Rosie heard His voice,
and went to Him.

Sir Vivian Barkeworth, during that day and night, was not pursuing the
even tenor of his way in that state of complacent self-approval which
was the usual attitude of his mind. It was not that he mourned the
child; his affections were at all times of